Lost luggage? Delays on the runway? Rental car depression? Don't complain about miserable travel headaches with the mother of all bad travel sagas looming on the big screen.
“The Odyssey” Christopher Nolan's epic take on the aftermath of the Trojan War opens July 17. Spoiler alert, if you somehow avoided Homer in community college: no one except the biblical Job has suffered more misery.
Flanked by cruel and mercurial gods at every turn, the legendary Greek hero Odysseus overcame a one-eyed giant, endured the spellbinding song of the sirens, and challenged the dead inhabitants of the underworld. He fought large cannibals, bested a witch, and lost dozens of men at every turn. He then returned to Ithaca after 10 years only to find his house invaded by suitors courting his wife.
It is a story full of bad decisions, failures, heartbreak and death. Perfect story material, given how much we love bad trip stories. We consume lists of worst airports and marvel at the accounts of riddled with diseases cruises. We scroll through videos starring rebellious passengers either torn bagsand read about it last resting place for lost luggage.
Hollywood has created an entire franchise around road trips gone wrong. Think “The Hangover” or “Sideways” or “Little Miss Sunshine.” Writer-director John Hughes perfected the comedic treatment of trips to the South on the big screen with such classics as “Home Alone,” “National Lampoon's Vacation” and “Planes, Trains and Automobiles.”
Let's not even talk about the “three-hour ride” that left Gilligan and his friends stranded on a desert island for 98 episodes, or how Jack Dawson's journey aboard the 1997 “Titanic” ended.
A significant body of evidence even indicates that traveling makes us sick. In fact, travel-related problems are so common that the consumer advocate Christopher Elliott has built an entire career solving them, from timeshare scams to horrible airline customer service and more.
Still, we continue to buy tickets and pack our bags to sail into the unknown, across the sea as dark as Homer's wine. Because? Elliott attributes this to what he calls “traveler's amnesia.”
“I'm surprised travelers aren't up in arms about the way they're treated,” he said. “They take a trip, have a terrible experience, forget everything that went wrong and only remember what went right.”
He suggests that avoiding a bad trip starts with choosing companies that stand out for their strong customer service. He cited some examples of well-known brands: Marriott for hotels, alaska airlines, and Enterprise Rent-A-Car. Avoid cruise ships as much as possible.
Which is funny, because when I think about a cruise, I don't think back to the miserable 36 hours the norovirus confined us to our cabin. Instead, I remember passing a flotilla of icebergs in Alaska's Glacier Bay.
When I think of Mexico, I don't dwell on memories involving Montezuma and his gastrointestinal revenge. But I do appreciate the idea of snorkeling with playful sea lion pups.
And when I think about airports, I erase the memory of the woman next to me at Gate 66 who insists on playing a video call at full volume. Instead, wielding my noise-canceling headphones, like Odysseus, I plan to drown out this screech to preserve my sanity. But before I can insert them, a voice speaks to me.
All of us, to be technically correct, as it emanates from the speakers at Terminal 6 at Los Angeles International Airport.
“It's time to play the TSA's favorite game!” the voice says, imitating the hustle and bustle of a game show host. “You lost it, we found it!”
The speaker explained that someone had left a laptop at a checkpoint. The two were reunited moments later, which got my feet moving, wondering whose voice it was. There, at the checkpoint, I met Carl Revis, a supervising TSA officer with a penchant for comedy.
“You don't have to be an idiot to get things done,” he told me. “I think reaching people through comedy is a lot easier than yelling and screaming at them.”
Taken together, my travel memories probably qualify me as living proof of Elliott's theory of traveler's amnesia. The final diagnosis should be clear soon. I'm retiring from full-time work this year and people inevitably ask what's next.
It's not entirely clear, I tell you. But I will definitely have more time to travel. Maybe sailing across the Aegean… what could go wrong?
